I was writing late last night, new ideas for my book, and I had an amazing idea. Some of the greatest stories and experiences I have are from meeting and speaking with people from random walks of life. Everyone from cab drivers, to homeless people around my work, to the guy at my psychiatric hospital who rips magazines to pieces. They all have really interesting takes on things, so I started writing about some of it very briefly. Here's a bit.

"Do you know where the best place to meet people is? Life. Just the other day I was riding home in a cab because my family is inept (long story), when the cab driver not only gave me her life story, but told me the title of nearly twenty books that I’ll “have to read”. One of them had to do with Tibetan monks, or something, but to summarize her theory on life, what’s wrong with you is either your parents or because of them.

That appeals me.

She may have smelt a bit like cat food, had a wonky left eye beneath bifocals and driven like she was having a grand mal but I think her opinion is worth applause, a nod of approval at the very least. According to her, I not only don’t have to take responsibility for being a capital ****-up, but I can pass that responsibility onto my parents! This is golden - she should be writing this book, not me.

For some reason, people with interesting life theories and odd behaviors seem to gravitate towards me. One of the most fascinating moments of my life happened while waiting for an appointment with my psychiatrist. The place is a psychiatric hospital where inpatients roam free and outpatients come through a series of locked doors.

I’m sitting in the waiting room, minding my own business counting ceiling tiles and checking the clock repeatedly, when in walks a guy who looks like he’s strung out on speed. He sits beside me (the gravitation thing) and tears off the cover to the TIME magazine on the coffee table. He starts ripping it into pieces and than puts it back on top of the magazine.

He turns and looks me in the eyes. Complete silence. The tension is palpable. The other people in the waiting room are looking at him like he just killed the chimpanzees that were on the cover. He said to me, “It seems better this way,” and gets up and leaves.

Now that is an interesting take on things. What is and what seems are two completely different things. I might think the cover seemed better on since then I could actually tell what magazine it was, what date it was from, and what the cover story was, but to him it just seemed better to rip that up. Makes you think more about life, now doesn’t it?

It’s these small encounters that seem bigger than life for me; human interactions that hit me deep, in a funny, very random kind of way. They strike a note worthy of a Beethoven masterpiece, paint a stroke like Picasso, write a sonnet like Shakespeare – beauty only to be recognized after the fact either for its simplicity or its complexity depending on how you look at it."

The last bit is cheesy. I'm toying with this. I was just laughing so much last night remembering some of my encounters. Thought I'd share.